“About a week. Finally, a sheriff came to the house, and the boys all claimed their parents had run off, abandoning them. But the sheriff didn’t believe it. It didn’t take long to find two graves dug in the root cellar. The boys’ story changed, and they claimed their folks killed each other, and the boys’ only part in it was burying them. But the questioning went on until Randall confessed that Oliver had killed them in their sleep. They all three got sent to Jeffers. But they were young, and there was some sympathy for them, so they stayed a few years, finished growing up, got fed better than they had at home, and learned to read and cipher. Then they were let loose.”

John looked up. “Clovis had been out a year when he married your ma, Falcon. Randall and Oliver left the area. I suspect they headed north, got rid of their Tennessee accents, and set out to get rich however they could.”

“Oliver was always the worst of us.” A voice turned them all around. They watched Randall Kingston sit up on the cot in the jailhouse. He rubbed both hands over his face. “I was a thief. Clovis a liar and a cheat. Oliver a killer. A fine lot we were. The one thing we came away from our childhood with was loyalty to each other. That’s why I’ve kept quiet about Oliver all these years. I had my doubts about how his wife died, but I wasn’t around and didn’t really know about it. I could let myself believe she’d died birthing a child. I never heard tell of the housekeepers.”

Wyatt wondered how long Randall had been awake. And he wondered how good a liar he was. Good enough to talk his way out of that jail cell by turning on his brother? “Why’d you shoot Rachel?”

Randall’s eyes came to Wyatt. Cold eyes. The same golden brown as his. Only Randall’s were cold as the grave.

“Oliver told me she’d shot you. And tried to kill him. He’d heard she was back around.”

“How’d he hear? She slipped in at night and stayed to the house.”

Randall’s jaw tightened. “We have someone who keeps an eye out at your place. Youngster named Jesse.”

Cheyenne and Wyatt had matching expressions of rage.

“He looks in the windows when he can. He saw her. Heard your plan to ride to White Rock Station and the trail you’d use. Jesse told Oliver. Oliver told me she was coming back to kill him. I set out to stop her.”

“We’ve got a hand we need to fire.” Cheyenne’s voice could out-cold Randall’s eyes any day of the week.